


the conservation of energy

by butiamhome



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 16:45:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2032371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butiamhome/pseuds/butiamhome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dawn doesn’t love science, but she respects it.<br/>It’s important, she understands, because it shows us how stuff happens and explains why it does. And she can respect that, because she has a lot of questions she wants answered.</p>
<p>(A short drabble, originally posted on my old-old tumblr, dub-dub.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the conservation of energy

Dawn doesn’t love science, but she respects it.  
It’s important, she understands, because it shows how stuff happens and explains why it does. And she can respect that, because she has a lot of questions she wants answered.  
She finds something interesting in each field, even if she has to squint. In freshman chemistry, she excels at nomenclature—words and meanings and putting them together as shortcuts to knowledge? Cool. Willow gets excited when she says the experiments remind her of spells, and Dawn has to force herself to sit down and study instead of going off to learn magic.  
She struggles more with biology the next year. Animals and plants are fine, but it’s hard to listen to the teacher lecture about how “we as human beings” work without the voice in her head reminding her that she shouldn’t be included. She ignores it and tries to learn. When they watch a video about what happens to your brain and all your inner systems when you die, she asks to be excused. She doesn’t go back to class that day.  
Physics comes as a relief. There aren’t people, things are mechanical and Dawn doesn’t have so many feelings tied up in the course material. She tries to connect the principles to Buffy’s fighting—a demon in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by a tiny, blonde outside force, after all. She’s quiet in class, keeps to asking questions and answering those the teacher asks.  
The class learns that while it can change location and form within a system, energy cannot be created or destroyed. Dawn smiles despite herself. When the professor asks what’s so funny, she’s tempted to offer herself up as a case study; instead, she explains that she learned all this last year.


End file.
